Corp+Group+Module+3+Wiki

For this week, you will work together in your teams to identify some key issues in your specific area. On the r511 wiki ([|http://r511.wikispaces.com /module3a]), answer the following questions as a team:

1. What is the status of instructional technology's mission to convert the world to appropriate use of technology-based instruction? 2. How would you characterize the role that technology plays in instruction in K-12 schools (or higher education or corporate education) today? 3. How would you describe the role that technology should play in instruction in K-12 schools schools (or higher education or corporate education) today? _ STH~ 1. What is the status of instructional technology's mission to convert the world to appropriate use of technology-based instruction? Many of these resources tout the value of ID in corporate contexts. I think these show the influence of IT and the use of technology based education.
 * in the corporate domain?
 * in the higher-education domain?
 * in the school domain?
 * in the corporate domain?

Resources: [|Instructional Technology?E-Learning] [|Corporate Trends] [|Learning Technology] [|High Tech vs High Touch] [|Qualitative Study] [|Jobs :)] [|Writewell Workshops] [|Cognitive Design Solutions] [|Senator Lieberman] [|Adobe Think Tank] [|Megatrend #2]

After reading Bichelmeyer and Molenda (2006), the most common learning environment is still the face to face classroom (p. 4). Manuals and textbooks are still predominant (p. 4). Videotapes are still used at 56% of organizations responding to the survey (p.7). Information and communications technology (ICT) is actually declining (p.11). E- learning is expensive and learners need to be able to use the technologies. It takes time to get learners up to speed on "new" technologies. "Workflow" learning is is the latest hope for a successful application of technology in the workplace training environment. This consists of embedding the learning into everyday workflow. The learning is available when the worker needs it and will be most effective in solving workday problems at the moment they are needed.

All in all, the data from Bichelmeyer and Molenda (2006) suggest that the use of technology-based instruction is declining in the workplace. There appears to be a continuing resistance to use technology-based education in the workplace. The authors (2006) conclude that technology use lags behind the availability of technology for many reasons:
 * costs
 * human factors such as teacher resistance to technology
 * the need for specialized training to use the technology

Comment: //Great dialog Tammy, Jessica, Steve H. and Steve W. This is good stuff and you all have a lot to share form your personal experience. I look forward to the posting Steve.//

TWV--Wow, I haven't taken a wide angle shot regarding instructional technology, uh, ever. The two things that struck me were the Reigluth presentation from last week where he discussed piecemeal and systemic change and when Bichelmeyer and Molenda discussed the glory days for instructional technology in the dot.com era. Back then, when I was actually working, instructional technology did seem like the answer to a lot of training problems and I think the corporate world was somewhat enchanted with the concept of what it could do. A systemic change seemed inevitable, but with the fall of the dot.coms it seems that because they were growing together IT didn't get separated and the honeymoon is over as it were. Also, the reality of the cost and time set in and not all of the learning was the end-all solution that was expected. For those reasons I believe the evolutionary shift has slowed quite a bit and taken more of a piecemeal approach as corporate executives have taken a step back to evaluate. I do think that initially instructional technology carved out a niche and established the possibilities for training and by bringing a systematic approach to training made that ellusive solution seem attainable. But the corporate world was not prepared to do that all on their own and would hire e-learning vendors like the one I worked for. (Just as an overview, so you can almost see the enthusiasm that was created by the dot.com, the company I worked for was called Asymetrics, then they changed their name and address to click2learn.com, when things weren't looking so good they dropped the dot.com and went by click2learn, then merged with Docent and finally became Sum Total Systems--all within the last 10 years!) In response to the second question: 2. How would you characterize the role that technology plays in instruction in K-12 schools (or higher education or corporate education) today? I believe that the improvements and evolution of the tools and software available in the last decade makes it possible for almost anyone to create something that looks like training. However, no matter how professional that training looks it isn't backed by the theory or necessary preparation or identification of the true learning issues. Now it is possible to find job descriptions for instructional designers where you wouldn't before; a small gain is that the title is now fixed in the corporate world, but within corporate, you can now find people that are doing instructional design work, as their job title, who are not trained as instructional designers and couldn't impplement ADDIE because they don't know how.

Shaun did a nice job of breaking down the article and pointed out the major eye-catchers for me too. I thought it was eye-opening to see that stand-up and paper documents are still dominant. However, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that people go with what they know. In response to the question, "What is the status of instructional technology's mission to convert the world to appropriate use of technology-based instruction?" It seems that we are in the initial stages of they systemic change that is inevitable because as Dr. Reigluth pointed out, "Big changes in society cause (require) systemic changes in all societal systems" and adapting life to the information age is a big change. It seems likely that in their enthusiasm to convert the world, instructional technology professionals neglected to recognize that systematic testing is part of the scientific method and the corporate executives, looking from the top down, wanted the changes to happen faster than possible because they needed the effect of the training yesterday. Though if trainers can effectively implement workflow learning, I think that is a good step in the right direction, but designers still need the understanding that comes with understanding of theory. I loved the quote from Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy & Perry, "Instructional design and develop must be based upon some theory of learning and/or cognition; effective design is possible only if the developer has reflexive awareness of the theoretical basis underlying the desgin." I also believe that there needs to be a unification within the training industry or a certification of some type. Otherwise, there will always be the perception that anybody can create training which seems to be prolific in the corporate environment today.

OK--I'll get off the soapbox now! Tammy

Jessica--- It seems like I've started in too late to add a new perspective to the readings; you've all summed up so nicely, and brought out different aspects of the information that I hadn't retained or I'd just glossed over.

One thing I will add: Roughly a week ago I went to my ASTD chapter's meeting, in which the keynote speaker was (as I recall) the head of Randstad North America's HR Dept. Apparently Randstad does a yearly survey of employers and employees re: trends, attitudes, etc.

You can find the pdf of their study for 2007 here.http://www.us.randstad.com/the%20world%20of%20work%202007.pdf

What I got out of the presentation & pdf is that there seems to be an almost constructivist (employee-centered) attitude in corporations now.

How does this relate to the topic at hand? One stat that jumped out at me in the presentation: in 2004, 60% of the companies interviewed said technology was the way to solve problems. in 2005, 50% said this. In 2006, 15% said that--they were instead viewing employees as the way to solve problems. To me this directly relates to the findings of our reading that face-to-face and classroom trainings are still the most prevalently used in corporations.

There also seemed to be a general finding that productivity gains are increasingly associated with employee efficiency & output, and less with technology. That particular survey result is on page 16 of the bound study (not sure about the pdf version). ~Jessica

Steve H-- I'll add more coherent comments in the morning after I've slept on the Bichelmeyer and Molenda article, but I wonder if technology isn't achieving the growth in corporate instruction due to its alignment with instructional strategy for the learners. We're viewing technology in ID in this context as a hardware thing. That said, there is a science to media and its interaction with learners and their environments. There is a field called Technical Communications that applies engineering-level energy to designing information for users. Maybe what is happening is a mis-match between hardware and users.

One of the articles that I did read (by mistake this week.....it's an article for next week) was by Zemke and Rossett. They quote an executive from Morotola saying,".....much of the dross created by e-learning and new media companies (may be due) to a lack of ISD rather than a lack in ISD. Look at the e-learning packages that people are trying to sell......There are few that give any evidence of real instructional design. Too many programs are just content dumps with flashy graphics. They lack tight practice opportunities, proper chunk size and sequencing and learning experiences that are problem-based."

I know that I've seen organizations rush to acquire the latest instructional hardware only to discover there was a good fit, something that ISD might have identified.

Anyway, thought I'd add that thought tonight. Sorry for messing up and reading the wrong stuff for the week. Be back in the morning.

Steve

SW - I'm sorry I didn't join the conversation earlier. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts, and would have liked to have responded in time to keep the discussion going. As it is, I definitely have some good stuff to work with for our group's post, but before I pull it together, I'll add some thoughts of my own. Hopefully, as a supervisor for an e-learning design team in a large corporation, I can provide some helpful insights, or at least another perspective.

Shaun, I think you're right on with your assessment that workflow learning (aka informal learning) is "the latest hope for a successful application of technology in the workplace training environment," and I'm sure there are companies much further along in this area that we are, but in my own experience I've seen very little evidence that much headway is being made here. In my company, I'd say the biggest obstacles to this are 1) a big clunky LMS that, if anything, inhibits the deployment of just-in-time learning because it is so difficult to access and use (and sorry, Tammy, but we're using SumTotal); 2) a corporate culture that actively discourages the embedding of performance support of any kind in places where it is easily accessible to workers on-the-job for fear that it will decrease productivity; 3) a highly regulated environment where tight control over any and all information is constantly enforced (mobile learning? yeah, right!); and 4) partnerships with the business that are tenuous at best, which inhibits us from getting the kind of SME and manager support that would enable the development and implementation of workflow learning tools. That said, my personal belief is that workflow learning is critical to the success of any business, particularly a large one in which workers are constantly bombarded with massive amounts of information. It drives me crazy that we are nearing the end of a juggernaut of a project in which we participated in the development of a training program for the rollout of a new loan origination system that includes no workflow learning components. In some ways, especially in its blending of ILT with e-learning, it's an exceptional program. But everything is geared towards providing learners with everything they need to know //before// they begin using the system, and by taking this approach, we're limiting both the success of the program and our ability to help the learners succeed in their new roles.

Tammy, if you hadn't already said nearly everything there is to be said so eloquently, I'd ask you to make room for me on that soapbox. //Especially// in a corporate environment with its own training organization, the trend -- and I have a feeling this isn't limited to my company or industry -- is to staff the training teams with employees recruited from within the business. Subject matter expertise is valued much more highly than ISD experience or skill, which I think is partly because many of our managers also came from within the business, and also lack that knowledge. (The e-learning design team has generally been the exception to that rule, but even I can only boast of two designers out of five with advanced degrees in ID -- and, of course, I myself am only just beginning my formal training in this area). The results of this have consistently been cookie cutter training programs that do little to take advantage of the technology resources we have available to us. Even when one of our business unit training design teams does engage us to develop some e-learning, most of the time it's simple page-turner stuff -- what we affectionately call "PowerPoint on steroids". Would a larger number of trained instructional designers help the situation? Probably, but it would also cost the company more money.

Even in this environment, however, there have been glimmers of hope that some in our business are willing to think slightly out of the box and try something new. I've heard rumors about efforts to implement some type of on-the-job support for call center employees, and recently we completed a course in which the learner creates an action plan while they're taking the course, and then prints it out and uses it on the job. It will be very interesting to see how things work out with that one.

To your point, Jessica, I think my company presents an interesting paradox in that regard. We're fully on board with the whole participative management thing, and I think we're getting much better at placing an emphasis on employees and their contributions, and doing our best to promote retention. And some improvements in the training of employees, if not necessarily in the training methods, have taken place as a result of this emphasis. I'm not sure I would associate a heavy reliance on f2f training on this, though, since f2f training is the traditional form of instruction that has always been prevalent. If anything, one might think that an employee-centered culture would promote a learner-centered philosophy towards training. However, I've seen very little shift towards more constructivist learning approaches, and I wonder if this disconnect exists in other companies, too.

I also found the productivity comments in that report interesting, but this statement (also on p. 16) was particularly enlightenting: "Using computers tops the list that employees and employers rank as very important elements of success. But, it’s the only one that’s linked to technology. All the rest are basic work and people skills." So does "using computers" include e-learning? I wonder.

Steve, I see your comments as pretty much along the same lines as Tammy's, and I'm still in agreement. In my last job, the IT and Marketing departments got together and decided to purchase an extremely expensive video-based marketing/learning platform that ended up never being implemented ... something we could have told them would happen from the beginning.

So, where do I think we are and where are we going? I think we have a lot of hard work ahead of us to bring the corporate sector into the 21st century. As I was listening to Bonnie Bracey's presentation, it struck me that as the younger generations enter our classrooms, for them it's like entering a time machine. Only they're traveling in the wrong direction, into a past without all of the technological innovations they're accustomed to in their everyday lives. All of a sudden they're plopped into a room in which an instructor tells them to turn off all of their wireless devices, and then proceeds to talk at them for a day or two while turning over flip charts and writing on a whiteboard. Even the classes that are a little more progressive in their approach, and include group discussions or role playing or whatever, still go no further than a PowerPoint deck in their use of technology (and of course the PPT deck is included in a handout or workbook). What's it going to take to bring about change? Confident, knowledgeable instructional designers and managers who will back them up would be a step in the right direction. This group needs to be the vanguard of a movement to improve the state of learning in their organizations. No one else is going to do it. They need to have the self-confidence to talk to senior managers in the business and make recommendations. They also need to team up with other groups who have a vested interest in these changes, such as the IT department, marketing and communications, and HR. With enough people on board, a groundswell could be started that soon enough would begin to transform the way training, and in particular the use of technology in training, is viewed by the organization.

I'm sorry about the book. Looks like I've just added considerably to my work in compiling a group response. If anyone looks at this in the morning, and has any guiding remarks, I'd be grateful. Regardless, I'll have something posted by noon EDT (that's 9 a.m. for me, kids!). Need sleep!

Steve H

SteveW. I like what you've said. It's interesting that I've just completed a masters in technical communications whose adherents say a lot of what you've saying above. User-centered, aligning the product with the user.......

What I attempted to say last night and not very well in retrospect, was that it may be too early to declare technology (hardware) as a failure with corporate training. The quote from the Zemke and Rossett article involving a Motorola exec said that a lot of the surge of technology in e-learning was wrong because people simply bought stuff off the shelf, dropped it into a LAN and expected to see immediate performance improvement.

What these organizations were failing to do was apply ISD or technical communication discipline to designing the solutions.

My organization is beginning to use the Blended Learning the Bichelmeyer article mentions on pg. 12 for Six Sigma training. Pretty much as written. The jury is still out on how well this will work but they've decided to use technology within the instructional strategy where it will work best (Bichelmeyer talks about using technology for learning that is low on cognitive load and face to face, interactive learning strategies for the high end cognitive stuff) and not superimpose it on the entire learning process.

I think technology is here to stay with us corporate trainers. But I think there will be a period of maturing in how, when, what to use these resources (ICT) after the initial tidal wave of throwing technology out there and hoping it'll work better.

Talk with everyone during chat this week. Steve